ITV to take on Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ with new streaming service
ITV is to launch a new streaming service combining ad-funded and subscription TV shows and films as it aims to become a “national champion” in the battle for British viewers with US streaming giants including Netflix, Amazon and Disney+.
ITV, which has told the Russian broadcaster of the local version of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here not to broadcast the show this year as part of a programming licensing and sales freeze with the state, said that the new ITVX service will launch in the fourth quarter this year.
ITVX will become its new streaming master brand, with the existing free ITV Hub and paid-for, ad-free ITV Hub+ brands to be scrapped while it will also draw on content from BritBox, its international paid streaming joint venture with the BBC.
ITV says that the new service, which will be led by free advertising-funded content with an optional subscription tier, will offer viewers a “starry” premiere each week and 15,000 hours of content when it launches in the fourth quarter this year.
“We are confident that we will become a UK leader in streaming,” said Carolyn McCall, chief executive at ITV. “Our ambitions in the streaming world are not world domination. It is about being a national champion. It is compelling and our expectations of subscriber numbers have been modelled in a very realistic way.”
ITV said that it currently has 1.2m subscribers to ITV Hub+ and Britbox UK, which the BBC is pulling out of as part of the launch of ITVX, while ITV Hub increased registered user accounts by 6% to 34.7m.
Netflix has an estimated 14 million paying subscribers in the UK, with rival Amazon’s Prime Video at 12 million and Disney at almost 5 million.
ITV said the launch of the new service forms part of a target of doubling
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